Kylie Brooks married Rob Swan on P&O’s Pacific Pearl on January 24, 2014. She tells Cruise Passenger about the biggest day of their lives…

When we got engaged, my now husband, Rob, was really keen on a destination wedding. I’d heard P&O did cruise-ship weddings, and I’ve always had a passion for cruising, so I thought “Why not?”. Lucky Rob was also keen on the idea!

The hardest part of the whole process was choosing which cruise to get married on. After a while of looking, we thought we’d choose a date of significance; we first started dating on Australia Day, so when we saw P&O’s three-night Australia Day “cruise to nowhere” onboard Pacific Pearl, we jumped on it.

We had our wedding in the Dome on the top deck. Not only was it reserved for just us, it also offered 180-degree views of Sydney. Thirty of our close friends and family attended – it was lovely to have such an intimate ceremony.

Afterwards, we attended the muster drill – in full wedding attire – and celebrated sail-away with all the other passengers.

Later that night, we all went to the main dining room for dinner (when you’ve got a large group, you’re given your own area). After dinner we were meant to go to the nightclub for our first dance, but due to rough seas and the Australian Open being on, we were moved to the theatre, which was even better because then we got to have our first dance in front of so many more people – and we were on a stage, too!

The rest of the cruise was just as amazing. Australia Day was so fun-filled – I even got back into my dress for a patriotic competition (we were playing against the Pacific Jewel, which was also docked in Sydney Harbour at the time) and we partied all night, singing along to Mahalia Barnes and Prinnie Stevens from The Voice. (For those of you who don’t know, Mahalia is Jimmy Barnes’ daughter, which just added that extra wow factor!)

As we were the only couple to marry on that cruise, so many other guests took the time to congratulate us when they recognised us – we felt like celebrities!

I wouldn’t change a thing about our day, and so many of our guests said it was the best wedding they have ever been to. Most weddings only go for a few hours, but ours went for three days – and everyone had a great holiday. All up, the wedding cost us $1300.

P&O does provide a photographer, but we wanted to go with someone we knew who would be able to take photos throughout the whole cruise, so we asked a close friend of ours. Here are a few of our favourite happy snaps…